I'd Just Punch Them
by aloxi
Summary: Set two years post-Specials. Tally and David make a long overdue visit to Sol and Ellie's. “I’m not even tired.” “Tally Youngblood doesn’t get tired.” “Nope.”


"Shh."

"Why the hell are you 'shhing' me? I didn't _do _anything."

"You're grumbling to yourself. Be _quiet._"

"Well, now you're talking, so why are you freaking out at me?"

"I'm not freaking out, I would just prefer that we get to your parents' house without being _captured._"

"…If anyone tried to take us in, I'd just punch them."

"I know. That's why I'm trying to avoid that scenario. Like you need to irritate any more government officials."

"It'd probably be more helpful if you could stop talking, you know."

"_You_ were the one who was talking in the first place."

"Talking and grumbling spitefully to myself are different."

"They both involve noise from your vocal cords, don't they?"

"…."

"I rest my case."

"Technicality. Shut up."

"How is it a technicality if—"

A soft thump indicated that Tally had just shoved David from behind. He righted himself and snorted as quietly as could be managed. "That's mature."

"_You're _mature," Tally said.

"That made _no _sense at all."

"_You _make no sense at all."

"I hate it when you do that," David muttered, and turned around to face Tally. "We seem to have encountered a locked door."

She smirked. "Oh no. How ever will we get past it?"

"I guess we'll just have to give up."

"Looks like it."

Tally then proceeded to lean over and twist the iron implement until it snapped off into her hand. "Stuff like that gets more and more creepy every time you do it," David said conversationally. "Ladies first."

"What the hell does that mean?"

He shrugged. "Rusties always let women go first. It was how they were polite."

"Yeah, but technically," Tally said, swinging open the door that would lead them into the 'burbs, "I'm like, half woman, half super killing machine. So I don't think it counts."

She led the way in, ignoring David's soft sigh. "You aren't a super killing machine."

Tally paused. "A mediocre killing machine?" she asked.

"_No._" He rolled his eyes at her back, clothed in the sneaksuit that seemed to be all she ever wore. "Quit being self-deprecating."

"…_You're _being self-deprecating."

"One day, that's going to stop being funny."

"It stopped being funny to you around the fifth time I ever did it," she pointed out.

"True," David acknowledged, and then pulled a small, oddly shaped doll from his pocket. "Getting rid of this could be helpful."

"On it." Tally grabbed the doll, hurriedly repressed a memory of the first time she saw it hanging from a tree branch, and took careful aim. With one pitch, it sailed over the wall surrounding the Middle-Pretty suburbs, Tally only stumbling backwards slightly with the force of her throw.

David steadied her. "How far was that?"

"The river. Probably." She rubbed her wrist, looked around. "Let's go. It's a few streets away."

Andrew's stolen neuron scrambler safely out of their hands, Tally heard the faint clicking as cams that bordered the outside wall started up again. Who knew it worked on their tiny little auto-brains, too? Granted, scaling the wall itself would have been simpler. But that was her, and David wouldn't have been able to use those tiny cracks it provided, and then she would have Special thoughts again and then she would feel guilty and not talk to him for a day and half, which was her personal record so far. And, for obvious reasons, Tally didn't particularly like any of that; so overall, jamming cam-brains and breaking a lock satisfied her.

She darted past low-burning street lamps, David right behind her. "Everyone's in bed, I think."

"How do people _live _here?" David muttered. A hovercar sounded distantly, and they both froze. Tally tugged on his sleeve.

"Cut through," she mouthed, tilting her chin towards the neatly sheared collection of bushes that separated two nearly identical houses. "It's the yellow one."

"How specific," he whispered, in reference the five yellow houses Tally could see from this angle. Nonetheless, they both flitted over the lawn she had pointed out, carefully measuring the length that would stop invisible sensors from brushing them. A blaring alarm was not exactly what they needed at this point.

Something tugged at Tally as she stared down the street at the house she had spent eleven years living in. She wasn't even twenty yet; more than half her life was here.

It wasn't an icy feeling.

She scowled, then took her anger out on the nearest bush by slamming her foot through it, making sure to position her leg at enough of an angle so it swept through the largest branches and the movement never made of sound.

David rolled his eyes. "That was necessary," he murmured.

"Could have been you," Tally reminded him, then grabbed at his arm. "Come _on._"

"Because I _know _where we're going," he hissed, his nature-born instincts taken over as he easily hopped over the bush Tally had just partially decimated. She followed, and with a few more seconds whispered argument they finally darted over to the other side of the street, making sure to stay out of the rings of light street lamps provided.

More nostalgia tugged at Tally, mostly from the realization that she was eighteen years old and preparing to break into her parents' house, because if she did this in broad daylight there was a very large chance a government official of some kind would attempt to arrest her for some crime or another. Tally sighed quietly. Her visions of the future as a littlie had been very different from this, up to and including the fact that in said visions there was never an Ugly man crouched beside her, looking unduly impatient.

"Give me a _minute,_" she snapped, feeling her sneaksuit reconfigure to hide her body better in the dark shadow of her parents' house, as she and David paused at the small ridge that separated it from the next couples'. "I'm thinking."

"You remember the sensor pattern, right?"

"Of course I _remember. _I'm not a bubblehead," she muttered, ignoring the fact that she was most definitely having to wrack her brain. There was at least some relief in the fact that Sol and Ellie wouldn't have changed the pattern of the invisible sensors around the house— once it was set, it was set for life. Pretties had enough trouble working around their lesioned brains without having to memorize a new sensor pattern every few months.

Tally stood slightly. "Me and Peris snuck in and out of our houses so much I think the pattern's permanently etched into my memory," she informed David, not quite sure why she was. She paused, then, ignoring some latent instinct warning her to be tentative, leapt gently onto her parents' lawn.

She felt rather than saw David tensing. "Relax," Tally breathed, and resumed jumping from space to space. There was a triangle-shaped free spot just underneath the wide window that opening into the front room, she remembered, and before she even reached it could already hear David following behind.

"You trust me," Tally smirked, pressing her fingers to the window to test its give. Excellent. They made locks for windows… but this was the 'burbs. _Who needs them? _was the general consensus. At least, it had been when she was a littlie. Who knew how many people locked their windows now because they'd heard stories of the infamous Special, Tally Youngblood?

Distracted by the window, she barely noticed David answering, "Why wouldn't I?"

"Lots of reasons," Tally muttered, and then pushed open their entrance. She had assured David before they even left the Ruins that there weren't any sensors on windows— why would _anyone_ use them to _sneak in_?

She slung one leg over the sill, then felt David resting a hand on her back to steady her, even though her balance was perfect. She ignored it, quietly leaping the rest of the way into the room.

"This way," she murmured, when David had slipped inside too. He nodded at her, tugging the window back down as she picked her way carefully through darkness to the hallway on the other side. David followed, keeping close to her and her easy night-vision, until they reached the archway where Tally finally let her muscles relax the slightest bit.

"At the end," she said, answering his unspoken question as they crept toward the doorway at the very end of the hall. Tally reached for the knob, testing it with the sort of precision only Specials had. It couldn't make any noise. She wanted to see Sol and Ellie, but… not yet. Not this second.

"I think you should turn it now," David teased, whispering in her ear. Tally startled, then turned her head to scowl at him.

"Shut up," she muttered, easing the door open. As was expected, her old room was pitch black. It was tempting to switch visions, but there was David…

"Lights on low, please," Tally said, and wasn't surprised when it took the voice-activated room a moment to respond to a pitch it hadn't heard in years. David was chuckling under his breath when the lights flickered to life, illuminating her littlie-hideout.

Tally figured she should be embarrassed or something, and with someone else she probably would have been (to the extent Specials could be embarrassed, anyway)— but this was David, and she was more than sure he didn't really care that the walls were purple or that all her old dolls were lying on the bed.

"Interesting," was his only comment as he shut the door gently. Tally was busy falling onto the bed with over-exaggerated adoration, which only made David shake his head and laugh.

"I forgot what beds feel like," she announced. "Not that your sleeping bags aren't icy or anything."

"Of course not," David said, carefully moving several of her dolls onto the bedside table before sitting down beside her. She rolled onto her back, feeling her sneaksuit go soft as it took in the blankets. It was sort of nice, and sort of weird, after getting used to it being dark and blotchy and occasionally metallic for the past couple of years.

David was staring down at her. "You should sleep."

"No, I shouldn't."

"Tally…"

"_What?_"

He sighed. "It's been a week and a half."

"So?" she asked, reaching up to yank her hair loose from its stretchy tie. It fell, tangled, across her face, and David brushed it away so he could look imploring into her eyes. Tally made a face.

"Why don't _you _sleep? _You're _the one who's—"

The air in her old bedroom suddenly seemed much more oppressive as they both froze.

"Average?" David supplied softly.

"_No,_" Tally snapped, although that had been exactly what she was thinking. Was thinking. Not anymore. Because she _didn't _think David was average. David was… David was David. End of story. She breathed, deeply and evenly, and felt her flash tattoos slowing down.

"I'm not even tired," she groused, letting her eyes flutter closed.

"Tally Youngblood doesn't get tired."

She smirked, eyes still closed. "Nope."

David's voice, the next time he spoke, was quietly triumphant. "I'll wake you up at six, okay?"

Tally shifted slightly, soft cotton doll limbs cushioning her. "Deal," she said, and shoved her Specialness aside to allow herself to fall asleep.

* * *

"Tally… Tally, wake up."

Generally, the words wouldn't have made her instincts fire. But combined with the hand on her shoulder, Tally jackknifed into a sitting position, swinging her leg out for leverage as she slammed whoever was touching her down by the shoulders.

To David's credit, he only looked mildly surprised that she had pinned him to the bed in approximately three seconds. "If you could maybe one day stop doing that when I try to wake you up, it would be great," he said conversationally. Tally narrowed her eyes.

"It's not like I try—" she started, but inhaled sharply as voices from outside the room became glaringly clear. Sol and Ellie's voices. In the kitchen, from what it sounded like. Probably deciding what to have the wall make for breakfast.

Tally raised her eyebrows at David, tilting her chin towards the door. His eyes widened and he nodded, thankfully realizing that she wanted him stay silent, and then sat up, careful not to make the bed creak from the sudden weight shift. She rolled off of him, tumbling lightly to the ground and popping to her feet as David stood up on the bed's other side.

They stared at each other for a moment. "Are you ready?" David finally asked.

Tally sighed, crossing her arms and concentrating so that her sneaksuit reconfigured back to plain black. "Utterly," she said, and reached out to open the door. The hallway was flooded with light from the generous amount of windows, and Tally forced herself to clamp down the nerves fluttering in her stomach. This wasn't a big deal. She was just visiting her parents. People did that all the time, right?

Except her parents hadn't seen her in person since she was an Ugly. Except she'd been on the newsfeeds more times than she could count. Except they might not have taken the pills that had circulated all over the world. Except they might be… scared of her.

Sol and Ellie's voices got clearer and clearer as Tally and David crept down the hall. She hesitated at the archway, and almost instantly David's hands came up to her shoulders. It probably shouldn't have been as comforting as it was.

"Go ahead," he murmured, lips almost touching her ear. Tally shrugged his hands away. She just had to walk in. Just walk.

"Just _walk,_" she mumbled, ordering herself. It wasn't exactly working.

David whispered again. "We can wait awhile, Tally. There's nowhere we have to be."

It raged against everything Special in her brain, but she desperately wanted to agree— agree and retreat to her old bedroom again, stay holed up in there with David for the rest of the day. Because if Sol and Ellie didn't… if they didn't want to…

"I…" she wavered, and then heard the unmistakable sound of her father's voice drawing closer. Tally and David froze, even as Sol called, "Let me just check the updates, alright?"

His footsteps came closer, and Tally whipped her head around to stare at David in what may have been the most obvious panic she'd ever shown him. They were both utterly obvious, poised in the archway, and as David turned to press against the shadowed wall Tally pushed her hand hard to his shoulder, leveraging enough weight so that her jump allowed her to cling to a ceiling rafter just above the archway.

David stared at her incredulously as she swung herself up to crouch on the tiny beam. She shook her head sharply, then narrowed her eyes in concentration before leaping to the next rafter, then the next. Now, when she looked down, she could see she was suspended just above Sol.

Tally tilted her head slightly. He looked… the same as she remembered from the last, awful meeting, after Shay had left for the Smoke. But it was oddly comforting, because it was the same way he looked in all her littlie-memories— except now his hair had been silvered slightly, more lines carved strategically on his Pretty face.

Maybe this was what all that surge boiled down to: She was made to hate Pretties, and she still loved Sol.

And if she could still love him, still love Ellie, after being turned Special— then surely, they had to still love her too.

Ellie wandered out of the kitchen, standing beside Sol as he flipped through the newsfeed updates on the wallscreen that dominated half the back wall. He smiled at her, and, shocking Tally so badly she actually almost _slipped, _said plainly, "Look, there's a new one about Tally."

Ellie's mouth went wide beneath Tally's perch on the rafters. "Oh! What does it say? Is she still in the wild?"

Tally's eyes skidded to the archway, to the wall David was still pressed against. He was looking straight at her. _See? _he mouthed, like he had known what she was worried about all along.

A warm feeling blossomed in the pit of her stomach; it made her vaguely uncomfortable. But Tally was forced to deal with it, especially as Sol clicked through live newsfeeds showing footage of the neuron-scrambler she had pitched over the wall last night, soaked from its float in the river, along with claims that therefore Tally Youngblood, Cutter extraordinaire, and David, son of Maddy, the brilliant maker of the Pretty Cure, _must _be somewhere near the city _right _at this_ very moment. _

Tally saw David tense in the shadows. Dammit. She should have thrown the thing harder. If David didn't like cities in general, he _really _didn't like hearing his name mentioned on city-linked feeds. Beneath Tally, her parents were talking hopefully— Sol was resting a hand on Ellie's shoulder, the other slipped around hers. Huh. They'd always stood like that a lot when she was a littlie.

Ugh. Why were nice memories so… un-icy?

She shook her head, hair falling gently over her ears as she listened intently to Sol and Ellie. "Do you think she might be here?" Ellie was asking, looking almost… worried. Worried for _what? _That she was— or that she wasn't?

Sol raised a hand to pat her Middle-Pretty, silver-streaked hair. "Might be," he answered, in that comforting voice that made Tally feel like she was five years old again.

Her decision was made very quickly. Actually, if David had been within speaking distance, he probably would have reminded her about thinking things through and making choices carefully and considering all the consequences…

But as it was, David was still pressed to the wall as Tally let herself drop down from the rafters, swinging in midair for half a second so that gravity's force pulled her landing to just in front of her parents. There was no sound but the soft pad of her feet hitting the floor in a carefully coordinated move to give off as little noise as possible, and her instinctive crouch just in case she needed balancing help from the tips of her fingers.

She could hear David's very quiet curse from across the room. It made her smirk, even as she stood all the way up to face Sol and Ellie.

"Yeah," she breathed shakily. "So, the feeds were right."

It was probably the worst entrance-line she'd ever thought up, but to her odd relief her parents didn't seem to notice. Ellie's eyes flickered to the ceiling, then back to Tally, and Sol seemed nothing short of shocked beyond words. Whether that was good or bad, Tally couldn't exactly say just yet.

They'd never seen her like this: flash tattoos, dark eyes, cruel face…

Did they even…?

Ellie recovered from the stun of her daughter plummeting from the rafters first. "…Tally?" she asked, the uncertainty in her voice making Tally strangely nervous— but then something in her eyes lit, and Tally was all of sudden captured by her mother's arms.

It was awkward. She guessed she'd expected that— you didn't get hugged by your parents once you were an Ugly. Not _really _hugged, anyway, not clutched to them like they didn't want to let go. Then they'd get attached and then they'd see you more and then they'd notice something off after you turned sixteen…

Tally felt herself being passed from her mother to her father, and she smiled into the smell of wood and metal that had always been Sol. She could remember being a littlie, kicking her feet in a chair Sol had made just for her in his workshop. She'd been _so _excited, she remembered… it'd had her name carve into the back, too…

"_Tally._" Ellie's hands were on her shoulders, and Tally shook her head slightly to move hair out of her face. Then Ellie reached out and tucked it behind her ear, such a standard _Mom _thing, and Tally couldn't help but study her eyes carefully. Spark of awareness, _please_—

_Yes. _

Ellie had taken the pills. And that meant Sol must have, too.

Her parents weren't lesioned.

Tally's breathing evened. No lesions. "David," she called, almost on reflex, because she was actually _happy _and so he had to be here, too. It was like a law of the universe.

She felt him coming up behind her instead of hearing him. Ellie released her, stepping back and raising a hand to her throat. Sol's gaze was flickering between Tally and David— David was standing by her side now, so that they practically mirrored her parents' pose.

The silence that ensued made Tally feel choked. But before she could end it, or, preferably, signal to David about it so _he _could end it, Ellie shook her head.

"Tally… Sweetheart, did you just _drop _out of the ceiling?"

Her voice rose an octave by the end of her sentence. Tally winced, fumbling. "Actually, I dropped out of the rafters."

"Rafters…" Sol repeated faintly.

David appeared to take on the role as mediator. Tally made a mental note to possibly smother him with thanks later. "We've been here since last night," he explained, inclining his head towards the hallway where Tally's old room was located. "Tally just decided to be a little… insane in revealing herself."

"Hey!" she protested immediately. "I _panicked, _okay?!"

"So your first instinct was to hop up on the rafters?"

"_Yes!_" Tally snapped.

Sol broke in with, "Since last _night?_"

Tally offered him an apologetic half-smile. "You guys don't lock your windows. Or my old bedroom door. That helped."

Ellie blinked furiously, as though she still didn't quite believe that her daughter was here. "Tally," she started, voice strung tight, and then reached out to trace the edges of her flash tattoos. It made Tally squeeze her eyes shut, feeling the tattoos move faster down her face, the spirals twisting.

"You look…" Sol trailed off, keeping his arm wrapped securely around Ellie's shoulders. At the lack of a conclusion, she felt vaguely like panicking again. _Look what? I look _what_? _

"Beautiful," Ellie said suddenly, decisively, as she pulled her hand away. "You look beautiful."

David smiled in Tally's peripheral vision; one twitched onto her own face, too. Sol took a deep breath, then seemed to shake himself into reality as he offered David his hand.

Ellie chimed in with a greeting, and then focused on her daughter. "Tally," she said, her voice lilting into something like disapproval. "Where have you _been?_"

The piece of smile turned into a real one. "Let me tell you about it," Tally said, and sat down to talk.

* * *

**a/n: **Thanks for reading! :) Just some notes on the fic in general:

**Tally/David's dialogue: **I gave them both senses of humor, haha. Apologies if it contributed to OOCness, but I don't really remember Zane/Tally joking around a lot and always figured it'd be a dynamic she and David have.

**The neuron scrambler working on cams: **That would be creative liscense. ;) I like to imagine it could jam their little wirey brains.

**Sensor patterns: **Wooh, creativity! Basically the entire Pretty housing system I made up, since we barely get any info on them in the books, if any at all.

**In which Tally thanks David for waking her up by pinning him: **That was originally a really awkward scene with him sitting up and her still on him... yeah. But I couldn't get it to work right so I scapped it. ;P Maybe another time, haha.

**Sol and Ellie: **We see them in "Uglies" and that's it. It always fascinated me that post-puberty, kids are basically estranged from their parents. Also, in "Uglies," Ellie calls Tally "sweetheart" at least once, so that's why she does it here.

**The rafters: **Are made of smart matter. ;) I imagine Sol wanted to make them out of wood but couldn't get permission, lol.

**Checking for Tally on the feeds: **I like to imagine there are lots of non-official feeds on her as well, some devoted to speculation about her and David. You know, kind of like those Rob/Kristen videos or whatever. I wrote a little more about Ellie casually mentioning that Tally... haha, quite funny if I do say so myself :).


End file.
